Texting

Happy birthday to my go-to receiver of random thought text messages. Thanks for always responding. This is a verbatim conversation; doesn’t everyone need a friend who can carry on such a conversation?

Tue, Dec 13, 2011

Me: Why do you think some people have no clue that their hairstyles are no longer stylish?

Me: It seems like their hair dresser would tell them.

Abby: Haha. Can you send a pic?

Me: I mean, my goodness it must take forever to feather your hair. Seems like you’d take the change in styles to save yourself some time!

Me: Sorry, no pic available

Abby: That’s unfortunate. Feathered hair a la Farrah Fawcett?

Me: Like 80s style

Abby: And I’m assuming she’s old enough to have been wearing it since the 80s.

Me: Yes, so was her leather jacket.

Me: P.s. I made a 101 in my financial mgt class!

Me: Maybe I missed my calling. Maybe I should have been a business tycoon…

Abby: Excellent and excellent! I may be more pumped about the feathered hair and leather jacket though.

Me: Haha. I’ll be honest, me too.

Abby: It isn’t too late for you to become a business tycoon, you know.

Me: Lies. It is too late. My fate is sealed.

Abby: It’s never too late! You can be whoever you want to be :)

Me: Thats a lie told to you by a bright and peppy kindergarten teacher.

Me: I’m apparently destined to be a bleeding heart fundraiser……

Abby: Don’t dash my hopes and dreams. I am pretty bright, peppy, and full of optimism myself.

Abby: You could be a hardass fundraiser if you wanted.

Me: I’m the yin to your yang my dear. I’m here to balance your peppiness.

Abby: haha. Someone’s gotta do it. I think it just makes Paul tired.

Me: pps. I’m playing racquetball tonight.

Abby: Racquetball? How did that happen?

My favorite sous chef

My mom would probably tell you that one reason I like to cook is because I get to direct people in the kitchen. I would frame it this way: I am confident in the kitchen. This means when people offer to assist, I feel comfortable sharing my method of doing things with them.

My youngest niece loves to help me cook (she really just likes to help with anything adults do – because she is awesome). She runs into the kitchen when she spies activity there and shouts, “I want to help make!”

So we get out all the ingredients, I sit her on the counter, and we “make.” I measure out the ingredients and let her pour them in the bowl and stir. She’s a great sous chef. She’s enthusiastic and relies on my direction. She also doesn’t shy away from telling other people in the kitchen what to do, if I ask her to. She’s a great sous chef.

“Ok, pour in the flour,” I say. She nods her head and says, “It’s time to put in the flowers,” and dumps the flour in the bowl.

Food for thought: Kids have a tendency to hear what adults say and make sense of it in a way that they understand. Perhaps we also do that as adults. We don’t realize it’s erroneous sometimes. As children, adults correct us when it’s important for us to understand. As adults, we typically surround ourselves with people who understand the world in the same way that we do. Thus, rarely do we accept corrections to the way we think.

Perspective is important – just ask my mom, who maintains that I am a bossy cook.

Oh, and this precious child will turn 3 this weekend!

Shades of green

Apparently, all of the earth is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day today. When I shut my car door this morning, a cloud of green poofed into my face. What is the pollen count today? Extra-enormously outrageous, that’s what it is. My car and all of the rest of the world (or at least the rest of metro Atlanta) was festively dressed in green on this 17^th of March.

Because the sunny weather and flowers tempt me into procrastination, I wandered out to appreciate this spring/early-summer-weather day. The greenness of Atlanta really is delightful. The bloom-bearing trees and teeny wild flowers all around make the pollen worth it. Right?

I am again considering re-naming my blog - this time to Urban Green Spaces and Other People’s Gardens, as this has been the current theme of my writing mind.

Happy sneeze-erific St. Patrick’s Day.

Eleanor Rigby

Until I was 20 years old, I thought that the lyrics to The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby were, “Look at all the lovely people.” In August 2005, I had just spent the summer in Connecticut working as a camp counselor with about 15 British people and had become accustomed to the accents. When I got back to the South and was driving around in my car, sweltering in the late summer heat, I remember realizing, “Oh!, lonely people,” when I heard the song on the radio.

Yes, I realize that “lonely” is more understandable in context. But since when did Beatles’ lyrics make sense? Eleanor Rigby falls between Yellow Submarine and Penny Lane on the number one hits CD; these songs were clearly devised under the influence of opiates. And I am the Walrus, really? And even sensible songs don’t make that much sense – 8 days a week, Love me do? What does “love me do” mean? Come on.

“All the lovely people.” I thought The Beatles were making some sort of statement about people who seem to go about their lives without other people noticing – they are actually lovely, maybe we should take notice.

But no, I was wrong. The Beatles were just pointing out the fact of these people’s loneliness. Poor Eleanor and Father McKenzie.

Speaking of The Beatles, I’ve had this song stuck in my head for weeks now.

Laughing at yourself

"If you can't laugh at yourself, life's gonna seem a whole lot longer than you'd like." - Garden State

Do you ever find yourself identifying with sitcom characters? Does this terrify you and make you laugh at the same time? Surely this is the point of comedy - to literally make you laugh at yourself.

Case in point:

I was watching a rerun of 30 Rock last week and completely, 100% identified with Elizabeth Lemon. Nerts!

Maybe I’m also as adorable as Tina Fey………… Doubts.

Here’s to laughing at yourself.

Flowers and snakes and weeds, oh my!

Taking advantage of the sunshine, brisk as the day may be, I managed to find some spring on this, my last ever day of Spring Break. A quick nature walk:



This little guy is the culprit that began my picture taking this afternoon. I took 13 pictures of this little black snake sunning himself on the sidewalk. This moment made me realize how much I'd been missing nature and, like the snake, the sun!



The dogwoods are blooming, the dogwoods are blooming!



This yellow fellow may or may not be a weed, but I think it's awfully pretty. (Spending time with nature makes me talk like an 85-year-old. I apologize.)



I have a fondness for this raggedy little flower. It's a survivor, you can tell.



But they were all quite pretty.



This week has been lovely - spending time with babies (and their parents), sleeping until 8:00, cooking, chillin' in NOLA and the A. Ok, ok. Enough de-stressing. Time to re-stress. Back to reading and writing and being responsible.

See you in May, Nature.